A STORY BEHIND

ABOUT PRIPYAT PIANO SHORT FILM

Due to high radiation level in former city of Pripyat, abandoned pianos became the only inhabitants who can maintain its sounds even if the surrounding walls collapse.

They are occasionaly visited by people, who were forced to leave them in their former homes. They produced their own songs, poems and lyrics - to be able overcome their lost.

With looking at overgrown objects in Pripyat, and listening the sounds of nature and radioactive pianos, they could witness the tremendous power of nature to be able not only to conquer, but also to adapt.

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Thus, there is no talking in the film. Just music, lyrics, and poems - all together create audiovisual concert. ​

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The film is dedicated to poet Lyubov Sirota and Olenka Chemezova - a young talented pianist who has died of a cancer in 1995.

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The Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred in 1986. Due to the high levels of radioactivity, many people had to leave their homes forever. Today, the city of Pripyat is one of the biggest ghost towns in the world.

Before shooting this documentary film, there was a CD Pripyat Piano with field recordings as the first project.

Director Eliška Cílková, who graduated from Musical Composition invented the idea, that presence of Pripyat could be transferred via music. In 2010 she began to look for abandoned pianos in Pripyat. Thanks to original inhabitants she found nine instruments and visited each of them to record. CD was released two years later, and it was also mentioned ​ in the book "Experimental Music since 1970" by Jennie Goatschalk in Oxford Press.

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In 2016 Eliška and her team started to work on a short documentary film. They were repeatedly visiting Pripyat during years 2018 and 2019, and shoot and record 20 abandoned pianos, and compositions and poets of Pripyat inhabitants.